Improving protection of fundamental rights and access to legal aid for remand prisoners in the European Union This project aims at strengthening judicial protection of fundamental

This project aims at strengthening judicial protection of fundamental rights of remand prisoners in the European Union and promoting harmonisation of national legislations in the field of access to rights and to court for remand prisoners

In this perspective, the project will :

• Collect data on main characteristics as to mechanisms of access to legal aid and mechanisms of access to legal remedies and to a lawyer given by institutions and NGOs in the European Union, including public policy orientations in this field

• Study empirically the impact of national mechanisms with a view to enabling real access to court for remand prisoners in 8 target countries (Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Spain, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Netherlands)

• Remind of requirements set by the ECtHR jurisprudence as to access to judicial aid for prisoners and diachronic study of legal aspects within European law and EU paperwork concerning prison conditions of remand prisoners

• Analyse the specific issue arisen by the guarantee of fundamental rights – especially the right to human dignity  - in the frame of the implementation of the European arrest warrant.

• Make recommendations to national bars on the organization of intervention of lawyers in prison for the protection of fundamental rights of remand prisoners

• Establish a model and development of digital resources facilitating access to legal remedies and the intervention of a lawyer, based on domestic best practices

The project will mainly benefit to:

• National bars from the 28 member states

• Population of remand prisoners in the European Union (about 155 000 people at a given date, according to an estimate made on the basis of cross data from the International Centre for Prison Studies and from the Green Paper of the Commission on pretrial detention. Statistics on annual entries in custody (flow of remand prisoners in custody) are impossible to recalculate.

The expected results of the project are the following:

National systems of legal aid available to remand prisoners will be documented and their performance analysed;

Best practice in terms of access to rights and to legal aid for remand prisoners will be identified and promoted;

Basis for the inclusion in European law of procedural obligations regarding legal aid for remand prisoners will be analysed and clarified ;

A review of available digital resources regarding access to rights and of the handling of litigation by bars will be drawn ;

A digital juridical library will be set up in order to ease the handling of prison litigation by lawyers

A body in charge of monitoring available legal aid for remand prisoners in detention will be formed.